Docking

Docking a node is a way to reduce clutter in a network by hiding an operator as a small dock icon on another node. This icon is color-coded to indicate the Operator Family of the docked node. Any node can be docked to another node. When a dock pa ent node is moved in the Network Editor, the docked node moves with it as well.

Docking does not affect the nodes' behavior, only the look.

A docked node is often docked to a related node to help with network organization, an example is the Ramp TOP. A new Ramp TOP is created with a docked Table DAT that stores the ramp color information. To view the Table DAT, click on the DAT-colored dock icon attached to the lower-right corner of the Ramp TOP. Click on the icon again to collapse the docked node back down to an icon.

Docking a Node

A node can be docked two different ways:

• - Right-clicking on the node to be docked and select Dock to ..., then click on the node you want to dock to.
• - Using Op.dock and Op.docked in python for the Operator class.

ramp1 with docked node collapsed, ramp2 with docked node exposed

Any node can be docked to another node. This helps organize networks as two node that are docked together will stay together when the dock parent is moved in a network editor. A docked node can be collapsed into a small icon under the dock parent, reducing network clutter.

An Operator Family that creates, composites and modifies images, and reads/writes images and movies to/from files and the network. TOPs run on the graphics card's GPU.

A form of DATs (Data Operators) that is structured as rows and columns of text strings.

An Operator Family that manipulates text strings: multi-line text or tables. Multi-line text is often a python Script or GLSL Shader, but can be any multi-line text. Tables are rows and columns of cells, each containing a text string.

The generic thing that holds an Operator, and includes Flags (display, bypass, lock, render, immune) and its position/size in the network. Whether you "lay down an Operator" or "lay down an Node", you're doing the same thing.